High school reunions promise a treasure of surprises about former classmates, whether they invented a new type of digital movie camera, starred in a shampoo commercial or just got divorced for the third time. But there was no need for Rhett Butler to update many people at his 10-year high school reunion at Menlo-Atherton High School last month in Atherton, Calif.

Mr. Butler says many of his former classmates approached him to talk about an article they had read about the 28-year-old entrepreneur and his Web site, mongabay.com, in the San Francisco Chronicle. "I think I was alone in that category, there aren't too many of my peers who currently get as much public attention," Mr. Butler says. When Mr. Butler was in Paris earlier this year, a woman shouted at him from across the Champs Elysée: "Mongabay!," and later told him how she recognized his face from the site.

Rhett Butler
Money, power, and influence aren't typically associated with twentysomethings, and those who have early success often have a bad rap. Popular culture has provided us with few examples of humble young people and plenty of obnoxious hot-shots. It's often assumed that those in leadership roles have won their status through family money, nepotism or both. But not every young success story has to feature an inflated ego.

Mr. Butler says he has been financially independent from his parents since he was 18 and now earns a "comfortable" living from selling ad space on his Web site that he estimates reaches an average audience of 600,000 unique visitors a month, based on internal tracking at the site. The site features environmental science writing and research by Mr. Butler culled in large part from his exploratory trips to various international ecosystems. Mr. Butler says the site, which is mainly a one-man show with few overhead costs, earns annual ad revenue in the six-figure range. He has no trouble covering the $1,250 rent on his apartment in Menlo Park, Calif. or financing his trips to places like China, Uganda and Peru.

Despite his increasingly high profile and sense of accomplishment, Mr. Butler says he doesn't do anything fancy like order bottle service when he goes out or drive a sports car. "I'm very down to earth," he says. "If I had a different personality it might be taken another way."

There are many tales about the notorious and influential kin of senators, celebrities and moguls, or about greedy and ostentatious "Young Turks" with unwarranted license to lord over older and more experienced people in the office.

Topher Grace's character in the 2004 film "In Good Company" is promoted at 26 to a position as the head of ad sales at a national magazine, based on his success marketing cellphones. He replaces a seasoned family man with more skills on the job, demotes him to a position as "wingman," fires several veteran staffers, and calls a meeting on Sunday, disturbing his employees in the midst of their family weekends. The young man's home life is equally disrupted by his over-caffeinated zest. He keeps his wife up until three in the morning talking about his new status until she asks him if he's even qualified for the job. "Sure," he says, "selling cellphones, selling ad space, it's all the same crap…anyway, it's just a stepping stone." She leaves him three scenes later.

If we are suddenly catapulted from ordinary toil into a more powerful position at work, how do we navigate through our professional and personal relationships without sparking envy or alienating those in less desirable circumstances?

Randy Komisar, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Menlo Park, Calif., receives business plans from young entrepreneurs from all over the country and meets with many who are looking for financing or advice. In his 2000 book, "The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur," he describes the hyper-aggressive type of young person he sometimes encounters. This person is ravenous for money, jumpy, interrupting, quick to list a litany of credentials and, according to Mr. Komisar, quite unsettling to an older business person.

"Older people know the vagaries of success and the responsibilities that go along with it and the fleetingness, and usually have a sense of service to others who have helped them become successful. Young people should have a sense of noblesse oblige…and it can be difficult to understand that without coaching or mentoring from somebody with a better sense of context."

Mark DeKorne, 26, of The Woodlands, Texas, is a national account manager for a bedding manufacturer where he oversees 30-, 40-, and 50-year-olds. Mr. DeKorne started out working as a sales representative and says he moved up by working long hours and weekends and generating a lot of revenue through sales.

Mr. DeKorne says he works 60-80 hours a week and takes at least one airplane trip a week. His wife is pregnant, and they have put their three-bedroom townhouse on the market to rent when they move into a bigger home. His wife Heidi will stop working as a teacher when the baby comes.

With his friends, family, and colleagues, Mr. DeKorne says he downplays his success. "It doesn't give me any credibility to brag, and if I do I turn into the brat, so I'm very low-key." When he went deep-sea fishing off the coast of Florida, or to the Bahamas, for example, he didn't tell his friends if they weren't taking a vacation themselves. "That's a tough pill to swallow if you're sitting in an office," he says.

Kelly Fremon
Peers can be competitive with one another, especially if they're in the same industry. Kelly Fremon, 26, of Santa Monica, Calif., works in the film industry as does her boyfriend. She has been commissioned to work on three screenplays this year, and worries that her boyfriend compares his own success as a junior talent agent to hers. "You want to feel that every little bit of success you have you can celebrate with no hang-ups," she says. Her bloom has taken its toll on the relationship, she says, especially since she frequently works until three in the morning.

Her first script, a spec that launched her career, is about twentysomethings who graduate from college with stellar grades feeling like the world is full of opportunities only to face rejection again and again. Her agent is currently negotiating to have the script, "Ticket to Ride," set up for production at a Hollywood studio. Now that she no longer resembles her own dejected protagonists, Ms. Fremon is booking a script rewrite for $80,000, driving a new car and heading to Phuket, Thailand for a vacation.

Initially, at the bargaining table, Ms. Fremon knew her material -- movies and scripts. But she didn't have experience with the business of movies. She says it's key to remain confident in order to clinch a deal.

"You need to use your young energy to your advantage, but you have to temper it and use it at the right time," says Dave Rosen. Mr. Rosen, 31, of New York, was vice president of strategy at a global human resources company at 25, and started a bar in Brooklyn at 29. Now he's studio manager at an interactive Web design company. He remembers being in his twenties and standing up in a meeting to a bunch of colleagues who were in their fifties to suggest that one of their strategies would fail. Mr. Rosen turned out to be right, he says, and no harm came from the maneuver, but he had saved up his credibility, and up to that point had ceded to the judgment of those with more experience. He says the same kind of measured humility was important in his personal relationships as his career gained momentum.

Vulnerability isn't too attractive -- there's always the chance that it will remind older people how young and inexperienced we actually are. But somewhere between the young turk and the church mouse there must be a moderate - and palatable - category for young people with new ideas, insight and energy.